


Endgame

by McDannosPancakes



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Adventure, Angst, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-20
Packaged: 2021-03-21 08:22:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30018915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/McDannosPancakes/pseuds/McDannosPancakes
Summary: It doesn't take Steve McGarrett long to realize that leaving Hawaii was a mistake. With Catherine's support, he finds the courage to face his feelings for Danny Williams--and to hurry back to Hawaii to finally tell his partner how he feels about him.
Relationships: Steve McGarrett/Danny "Danno" Williams
Comments: 36
Kudos: 80





	1. Endgame Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> After Hawaii 5-0 ended in April of 2020, like so many others, I was disappointed. The series wrap up felt hasty, which given that its end was announced one month before the finale, it was perhaps always going to be. This story is what I'd like to think happened next. It's complete, 33 chapters in total. I'll be posting 1-2 new chapters a week. During the pandemic and lockdown, writing this story brought me a lot of joy amid very dark times. I hope it can bring that for others, too. Thank you for reading!

Chapter 1  
Steve

Catherine gives him almost two weeks before she finally confronts him. They’ve been to three cities in that time: London first, then Amsterdam, now Paris. Each one filled with a different kind of urban beauty. So different from the natural loveliness of Hawaii. 

They’ve slept together a handful of times. It’s familiar, comfortable. If he pushes aside all of those other thoughts, he can imagine this will be enough. That it will make him happy. That the two of them were always good together.

He is trying to tell himself that as he gazes out the window, looking out onto the streets of Montmartre. As the sun sets, his eyes land on two young men, hands joined. The taller, dark-haired one leans into the shorter blonde and whispers something into his ear, causing the blonde to laugh and look up at him, eyes sparkling.

It’s like a dagger to Steve’s heart.

“Hey,” Catherine says behind him, and Steve turns, trying and failing to muster up a smile.

“Did you sleep?” he asks. She was tired after their trip to the Louvre in the morning. He tries to push the happy, laughing men from his mind. The way the blonde looked up at his dark-haired partner. Just like… like…

“I dozed,” Catherine answers. She casts an appraising look at Steve and he wonders if he looks as raw as he feels. “I think it’s time we talked.”

Guess that’s a yes. Steve turns back to the window but the men are gone. He feels a pang of longing so deep it hits him in the gut like a punch. “About what?” he manages. Hoping that Catherine can’t hear it in his voice.

“About what you’re running from,” Catherine replies. Steve closes his eyes. She always did know him. He should have realized he couldn’t hide from her. After all, she used to be the person he was closest to, before… before…

“Steve. Look at me,” Catherine says and Steve turns, even though he knows it’s right there on his face, that pain and longing that’s grown up over the last ten years, covering him like ivy does an old, stately manor. 

“Oh, Steve,” she shakes her head, and he hears the sadness in her voice. For him. It’s not pity, not exactly.

He wants to shake this off, to rally and suggest they go out to dinner, have glass after glass of French Bordeaux, dance the night away. He wants to put that wall back up, go back to pretending that this is what he wanted. He wants it to be what he wants. Anything, anything but the truth.

That’s all he wants, so Steve doesn’t understand why the next words he speaks come pouring out of his mouth, one after another, as though someone else has loosened the powerful dam inside of him. “I thought if I left, if I went away, I’d stop feeling this way. That the distance would do what it’s supposed to do. Make me stop… make it stop….” He trails off, not sure if he’s wishing or asking. He looks at Catherine helplessly.

She looks him in the eye and says one word, the one word he’s been avoiding, running from, hiding from. “Danny.”

Steve feels himself crumple. “Danny,” he whispers in response. He sinks into the chair beside the window. He’s going to drown in it, this pain. He knows it.

And then Catherine is by his side, kneeling by his chair. Taking his hand. “Oh Steve,” she sighs. He looks at her and it’s only when he sees how blurry her visage is that he realizes he’s crying. He touches his face with his other hand, surprised to find it wet.

Catherine squeezes his hand. “Does he know?” she asks. Know? Know what? Steve doesn’t even know what this is, doesn’t understand it, has been pushing it down for so long that he’s lost the ability to articulate his feelings. It’s only in his dreams that it crystalizes, when he hears that low-pitched laughter, sees those flashing blue eyes, feels that soft, toned skin over the curves of those muscles.

“I… I… no,” Steve sputters. Then laughs hollowly, shaking his head. “How would I… what would I even say? There’s no way… no chance in hell….” He trails off. 

Catherine shakes her head. “Oh Steve, how are you ever going to know if you don’t tell him?” But Steve is shaking his head, no, it’s impossible, what would he ever say? When he can’t even put it into words for himself. He has never been able to, not from the moment that punch connected with his jaw and Danny stomped away from him and Steve’s heart lurched in a way it never had before.

Catherine sighs, and stands. She looks at him again. “Steven McGarrett, I have never seen you afraid of anything. I’ve watched you run into countless situations where you’re outgunned, outmanned, outmaneuvered and it doesn’t matter. You just plow forward. So you can’t honestly be telling me you’re afraid to look your partner of ten years in the eye and tell him how you really feel about him?”

Steve stands, feeling stronger. Catherine is giving him something to argue against. “It’s not that simple, Cath, and you know it. You’re in the Navy. You know how it is. It’s not like things like this are… this kind of stuff doesn’t fly with the SEALS.”

Catherine crosses her arms. “You aren’t seriously giving me ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ bullshit right now, are you?” Her tone is pure exasperation.

“Of course not,” Steve shakes his head. “You know I think that’s absurd. I’d never judge another guy, or a woman, for that. It’s just that I… I mean for me… I….” Catherine raises an eyebrow. “Come on, Cath,” Steve presses. “We were together. You know I’m not….”

“What do you want me to tell you, Steve?” Catherine counters. “That you’re a great lover? That you’re too ‘manly’ to be into your male partner?” She shakes her head. “The first thing has always been true. But the second is a load of horseshit and you know it. The toughest guy on my team is married to a man. They’re happy, Steve. You could be, too.” 

Steve shakes his head. “Even if... even if that were true, there’s no way… Danny has only ever been into women.”  
Catherine cocks her head. “Oh yeah? Funny, I remember watching the two of you snuggle on the couch when we watched The Notebook. Danny’s head was on your shoulder. He was in your arms, Steve.”

Steve clams up. He doesn’t tell her about this past Valentine’s Day, when he pulled the same move again, the arm around Danny. That halfway through Love Actually Danny was asleep on his shoulder. That the rest of the team and Brooke left and Steve stayed there for hours, with Danny fast asleep in his arms. That his heart lurched happily when Danny woke up and, confused, asked where everyone was. When Steve told him they’d left hours ago, Danny had just settled back on Steve’s shoulder with a contented, “Okay,” and gone back to sleep. Steve had eventually drifted off, happier than he’d been in such a long time.

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Steve argues, even though he desperately wishes for the opposite to be true.

Catherine has known him too long. She sees right through him. “Want me to bring up a hundred more examples? I could. This is just your fear talking.”

Steve stares at her helplessly. He wants to argue with her but doesn’t know how to in the face of the bald, unvarnished truth. He flashes to Danny chained up, in the clutches of Wo Fat’s wife. Beaten and battered. In Steve’s arms, bleeding from a gunshot wound. In the hospital bed, fighting for his life. The crystal clear realization Steve had looking at him in that bed that if Danny died, Steve wouldn’t survive it.

And so he ran. Halfway around the world and now Catherine is looking at him, seeing right through him. 

She swallows. Her own eyes growing misty. “You know I loved you, Steve. Love you,” she says, looking away from him for the first time. “It wasn’t easy for me… seeing the way you looked at him. Knowing I was second and always would be.”

Steve shakes his head. “Cath, no—“

She holds up a hand. “Let me finish,” she says firmly. “It wasn’t easy. But I thought if I left, if I… if I set you free, you’d find the courage to face your feelings. To tell him. When I found out you were going to propose to me…” She shakes her head. “Oh Steve, how can someone so smart and strong and brave be so afraid of his own feelings?”

Steve swallows. Fighting his own tears. “I nearly lost him, Catherine,” he manages to say. “I couldn’t… if I had, I wouldn’t have been able to… I couldn’t have…”

Catherine fixes him with a steely glare. “That’s what loving someone is, Steve. Being vulnerable. Worrying you could lose them.”

Steve meets her eyes. “I know that better than anyone, Catherine. My dad, Joe, my mother… I lost all of them. And I kind of lost you, too, didn’t I? When you walked out of my life.”

“So what’s your grand plan, Steve?” Catherine shoots back. “Leave before you can lose Danny, too? Just stay away from him until… when? That’s not the way this works and you know it. I’ve watched you these last two weeks, Steve. I’ve watched you breaking your own heart every time you don’t answer one of Danny’s texts. Every time I catch you looking at pictures of him on your phone.”

Steve looks down. Not knowing how to answer because she’s right, about all of it. He’s spent the last two weeks cataloging every time he held Danny in his arms, for a hug, for a movie night, when Danny was hurt, when Steve himself was wounded. Remembering the feel of Danny’s body pressed against his, of the feelings that stirred within him. Of Danny’s smaller hand engulfed by his own larger one, so still as Danny fought for his life in the hospital.

Catherine is by his side, hand on his arm. “Come here, Steve,” she says, pulling Steve into an embrace. He melts into her arms, lost. Broken. His eyes have clouded again. “We’re going to go back tomorrow, okay? I’m getting us two tickets to Oahu,” she says firmly.

He pulls back, looking down at her. “You’re coming with me?” 

She smiles up at him. “Someone’s got to make sure you don’t chicken out.” Her tone is light, but her words from earlier haunt him.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he says. “Ever. I didn’t… when I was going to propose to you… I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. I wanted to make you happy.”

Catherine’s face grows serious. “Steve, it was just another way of running. You know that, don’t you?”

Steve sighs. “We were good together, though, weren’t we?” 

“Sure we were,” Catherine says gently. “Except for you being in love with Danny, we were great.”

Steve offers her a small, sad smile. “I don’t know if I’ve got a shot with him, Cath,” he sighs. “He’s always been so hung up on Rachel.”

“He’s not with her now, is he?” Catherine asks. Steve shakes his head. “And I seem to remember the last time the chips were down, he chose you over her.”

A flash of Danny running up the police car when Steve was arrested for Governor Jameson’s murder flashes through Steve’s mind. He didn’t know then that Danny had stood Rachel up at the airport for him. And neither of them knew what it would cost Danny—years with his son because Rachel decided to stay with Stan and lie to Danny about Charlie’s parentage. 

Catherine snaps him out of his reverie. “Come on, sailor,” she says. “Let’s go get your boy.” 

* * *

They don’t talk much on the plane ride to Oahu. Catherine sleeps for much of the flight. Steve can’t; he’s all nervous, anxious energy, as though electricity is crackling in his veins. Just the mere prospect of laying eyes on Danny has his heart racing. How did he ever think he could deny this?

And yet, the one fear he didn’t tell Catherine about nags at him. The one linked to the guilt of the words Daiyu Mei uttered to him: “I have the person you care about most in the world.” The ones that meant that just by loving Danny, just by indulging in the exquisite pleasure of having Danny in his life, Steve had put Danny in danger.

Danny brushed it off in the hospital when Steve blamed his connection to Daiyu Mei. Had time and distance changed Danny’s mind? Steve knows the answer to that; there is no world in which Danny would ever blame him for the abduction. But Steve blames himself.

When they land and go through customs, Catherine rents a car and refuses to let Steve drive it. “Your truck is waiting for you at home,” she says. “And I’m not Danny.” She casts a pointed look at him. Steve doesn’t put up a fight. He deserves so much worse from Catherine.

They spend much of the ride engaged in small talk, reminiscing about their favorite sites from this trip and others they’ve taken in the past. Catherine ribs him for snoring. He tells her she gives orders in her sleep. She laughs at that.

“So do you know what you’re going to say?” she asks as she pulls up in front of Steve’s house. He takes in the familiar sight, looking at his truck parked next to Danny’s new Camero, glinting silver in the moonlight. 

“No clue,” Steve admits, but there’s a smile dancing at his lips. In a few moments, he’ll be with Danny again. Every atom in his body is being pulled towards that house. Towards Danny.

“You’ll figure it out,” Catherine smiles at him, but Steve detects the note of sadness in her voice. This isn’t fair to her, and he feels a pang of regret for what could have been.

“Cath, I don’t know how to thank you,” he starts.

Are her eyes a little watery or is that a trick of the moonlight? She shakes her head. “Well, what else is new?”

Steve leans forward and engulfs her in a huge hug. “Thank you,” he whispers. “I love you.”

“Love you, too,” she says, before pulling back and composing herself. “Now go.”

Steve grabs his bag from the back and jumps out of the car. He gives Catherine a little wave as she drives off and turns his attention back to the house.

He practically bounds through the front door. Then he freezes. Eddie isn’t here, running up to him, tail wagging. Or even barking. 

Steve drops the bag on the floor of the front entryway. He pulls his gun out and moves into the house, senses alert. Something is wrong.

He creeps into the kitchen, weapon raised… and finds himself staring down the barrel of a gun.


	2. Endgame Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For anyone who felt bad for Danny after Steve left him when he was still recovering, this chapter is for you.

Chapter 2  
Danny

He wakes up alone in Steve’s bed. His wounded body cries in pain as he slowly regains consciousness. Sunlight streams into the room. Steve would surely give him grief for sleeping in so late, but Steve isn’t here, is he?

Danny reaches for his cane as Eddie trots into the room, tail wagging. Danny groans looking at the dog’s eager face. “Yeah, I gotta pee, too, buddy. Give me a minute.”

Danny lifts himself painfully out of bed. Reason #439 he’s pissed at Steve for leaving: there’s no one to help him up. Danny allows himself a single pang of self-pity, dwelling for just a moment on the cold truth that in the end Steve turned out to be just another person who left him to fend for himself.

After his own trip to the bathroom, he hobbles downstairs to let Eddie out back. The dog races outside, sniffing around eagerly. The morning is another annoyingly beautiful one, and Danny tries and fails to not left his eyes drift to the twin chairs on the beach.

It hasn’t even been two weeks. Danny’s probably sent Steve a hundred texts; Steve has maybe answered a dozen. Danny started to feel like a desperate teenage girl so he’d stopped, trying to scrape together the crumbs of his pride. 

It’s not as if everyone else hasn’t been checking in on Danny incessantly. Not a day goes by that one or more members of Five-0 haven’t made some excuse to stop by or bring him groceries, beer, dog food for Eddie.

Grover gave Danny a week after Steve left to gingerly ask him when he was coming back to work. Danny had demurred, telling him that he was still recovering (true) and would let Grover know as soon as he had the all clear from his doctor (undecided). The truth is that Danny is thinking it might be time to call it a day and take that pension. Between Grover and Lincoln Cole, Five-0 is in good hands. And Danny doesn’t have a partner anymore.

Junior has all but moved in with Tani, making the excuse that Grace and Charlie will need a room when they visit, but Danny knows that it’s not the same for Junior without his mentor here. And who knows, maybe Junior was looking for an excuse to take things to the next level with Tani. The two of them seem ridiculously, joyously smitten, and Danny is both happy for them and downright jealous.

Everyone handles Danny with kid gloves, treating him like some sort of fragile porcelain doll that will shatter if they press too hard. Everyone, that is, but Rachel, who invited herself in last weekend when she came to pick Charlie up.

“He just left you here? In his house?” Rachel asked as she set a pot on the stove to make tea. 

“My house is still in sorry shape,” Danny said. “And besides, someone needs to look after Eddie here.”

Rachel had given him an appraising look. “Someone needs to look after you,” she countered. “You look awful. How could he just leave you all alone here?”

Danny shrugged, both grateful to her for voicing what he’d been feeling and irritated that she’d gotten to the heart of Danny’s emotional pain so succinctly. “I don’t know, Rach,” he shrugged. “I guess I’m just pretty easy to leave. You, Matty, Gabby, Melissa, now Steve.” He’d tried to sound casual about it, but each name on the list was like a little dagger to his heart.

Rachel rolled her eyes at that. “Nonsense, Daniel,” she’d said, but not really offered any counter argument as she’d poured tea for both of them and brought it over to the table. She looked him over appraisingly.

“How did you ever keep up with Charlie this weekend?” she asked. “I should have given you another weekend off.”

Danny shook his head vehemently. Sure, he’d exhausted himself looking after Charlie, but it had been a welcome distraction from the nightmares he’d been having ever since his abduction. From the constant pain his body has been in.

“So when is he coming back?” Rachel asked.

Danny looked away. He didn’t want to talk about Steve. “I don’t know. He didn’t say. Maybe never.”

Rachel raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything, knowing Danny would go on if she didn’t. And dammit, of course she was right. “He said, ‘you got a phone, right?’ but then he barely answers my texts. And he’s definitely not calling.” Danny felt himself pouting, but he couldn’t help it.

“That poor man,” Rachel opined, causing Danny to look at her sharply.

“Steve? What are you talking about? He’s off on some sort of grand world tour. I’m the one recovering from being kidnapped, beaten, and shot. And he’s the one you feel bad for?” Danny was in full on sulk mode now.

“Oh, Daniel, tell me you aren’t really this blind. That poor man is madly in love with you,” Rachel said. 

Danny just gaped at her. “What? That’s ridiculous… that’s just… no. It’s not… that’s not….” He’d shaken his head vehemently.

“I saw it from the first time you brought him to the house. The day you were doing that stake out at my house. The way he looked at you as he stood outside my door,” Rachel said.

“That was ten years ago,” Danny said. “Whatever you saw… I’m sure….”

“How about the way he tracked down that bastard who ran Grace off the road? Or the way he showed up on your doorstep after the hurricane to check in on you. The jealously on his face when he realized I’d stayed the night,” Rachel pressed.

“He wanted my pancakes,” Danny countered lamely.

“I’ll bet,” Rachel said dryly. Danny felt his cheeks flush. Sure, he’d caught Steve looking at him now and then with… a look in his eyes that didn’t feel entirely platonic. Okay, Steve used the ‘arm around the couch that turned into an arm around Danny’ move whenever they watched movies together. Steve didn’t hide his jealousy of Rachel very well. Or any woman in Danny’s life, for that matter. And Steve had compared their relationship to Danny’s marriage on more than one occasion. But none of that meant what Rachel was saying it meant.

…did it?

“You really didn’t know?” Rachel sounded incredulous.

“I didn’t… I still don’t,” Danny replied. It was impossible. Rachel was just seeing things. Steve had always had problems with her and the way she’d treated Danny, and she’d picked up on it. That was all.

…right?

“Oh, Danny, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised you missed this,” Rachel sighed. “I had to hit you with my car to catch your eye.” 

Danny laughed at that. Sometimes he still had a hard time believing his sophisticated ex-wife had committed a traffic violation just to get his attention.

“Look, Rach, this is an interesting theory, but it’s way off base. Besides, there’s no way he would have left if he felt that way,” Danny said.

“People leave people they’re still in love with all the time,” Rachel replied quietly. “Sometimes it just gets too hard.”

Danny looked away. Was she talking about them, too? Did it matter if she was? It all came down to people being able to leave him, whether they cared about him or not. He was never enough to make someone stay.

He cleared his throat. “Charlie’s all packed up. He’s just playing outside with the dog.” Danny stood; conversation over. Rachel registered it and nodded, taking one more sip of her tea before rising.

“Danny…,” she started but he shook his head, holding up a hand.

“You’re wrong,” he said. “Please, just stop.” She’d cast a pitying look at him before heading outside to get Charlie, Danny hobbling after her as best he could.

But now as he stands in the yard, watching Eddie frolic all over the beach with gleeful abandon, Danny recalls her words. Her certainty.

It’s absurd. Steve isn’t in love with him.

Steve. In love with him. It’s impossible.

And yet.

Yet.

Danny can’t stop thinking about it. Danny doesn’t even know how he feels about it. He’s never been into guys, never felt anything for another guy, never even thought about kissing another guy and yet when he thinks about the way Steve looks at him—how did he miss it all these years, the way Steve looks deep into him, like he can’t get enough of Danny’s face—his stomach flip flops in a way that tells him he doesn’t feel nothing for Steve.

Danny has spent days trying to push it from his mind. Trying not to think about the way Steve looked at him after he’d been kidnapped, when Daiyu Mei had him chained up. The desperation in Steve’s eyes. The way he’d compared the prospect of losing Danny to losing his father when Danny was in the hospital.

Danny’s not unaware of the way that Steve treats him more like a romantic partner than a work partner or even a best friend at times. The way Steve insists on driving Danny’s car. The way he puts his arm around Danny when they watch movies. The way Steve shows up at his house at all hours. Or that time Steve ‘accidentally’ signed them up for couple’s therapy. Danny had genuinely believed it was a mistake until he found a brochure for the seminar tucked away in Steve’s office drawer several weeks after they’d come back from the retreat. Steve had known all along. Danny had simply decided to buy Steve’s excuse that he wanted to knock out a month’s worth of therapy in one weekend.

Had Danny intentionally ignored the signs he’d seen? The way Steve grew more and more protective of him as the years went on? The way Steve had gotten into the restaurant despite it being “Danny’s thing.” Steve’s disinterest in dating after Catherine had left before he could propose. Danny had wondered if Steve was still hung up on her. There was Lynn, of course… but Danny remembers that Valentine’s Day getaway Lynn and Melissa planned, and how Steve and Danny had somehow spent more time together than with either of their girlfriends. How Steve’s arm ended up around Danny during most of the apology dinner Danny planned.

But none of that matters, does it? Steve is with Catherine now. So even if he did… have feelings for Danny, surely those are a distant memory now. Steve is happy now. Danny knows he needs to find a way to be fine with that, even if means Steve isn’t in his life anymore.

Eddie runs up to Danny with a stick in his mouth, whining plaintively. Danny leans down and takes the stick, tossing it for Eddie to chase after with glee. At least one of them is over being abandoned by Steve, Danny muses.

He rolls his eyes, trying to shake himself out of his funk. Just yesterday Tani had teased him about moping when she’d come by bearing brownies Junior had baked.

“Are you listening to emo music and eating ice cream straight out of the carton?” she’d asked. “I know that’s Steve’s t-shirt.” She’d gestured to the Navy shirt he was wearing.

“I haven’t done laundry in a couple of days,” Danny frowned at her.  
“Are you getting out of this house at all?” she asked, eyeing his messy hair. Danny self-consciously ran a hand through it.

“I can barely walk,” Danny waved his cane in her direction. “And everything I need I can get brought to me, thanks to the wonders of the internet.” 

“Danny,” Tani had pulled out a chair and plopped down opposite him at the kitchen table. “It’s okay to miss him. We all do. But holing up here for days on end isn’t going to do you any good. Why don’t you come back to 5-0? I know you can’t work cases yet, but you can sit in your office, push some papers around the desk.”

“As appealing as all of that sounds, it’s still pretty hard for me to get around,” Danny demurred. He was making an excuse, and he knew she’d see right through it, but what he didn’t want to say is that the idea of going back through those doors filled him with anxiety. Not just because of Steve not being there.

“Which is why it’s so important for you to do just that—move around, be with people. We all miss you, Danny,” Tani said.

Danny looked away. He didn’t want to tell Tani that every time he closed his eyes, he flashed back to being in his car, trying to get away from the people tailing him, then shooting at him. Trying to forget how easy it was for them to wreck his car and take him. How he knew for certain Daiyu Mei was going to kill him once Steve gave her the cypher, and how terrified and helpless he’d felt.

“I miss you guys, too,” he finally said. He considered telling her the truth about his nightmares. The way he’d wake up, heart racing after a nightmare. How he went to sleep and ended up in that room every night, his hands shackled, bleeding, looking at the devastation on Steve’s face through the phone screen. How he woke up screaming, shaking, sweating.

Night terrors. That’s what they are. Danny knows this. But he didn’t tell Tani that as he made excuses and tried to ignore the concern on her face as she hugged him and reluctantly left.

The night terrors started after Steve brought him back home from the hospital. That first night, Steve had carried Danny bridal style up the stairs, over Danny’s weak protests. The truth was, being in Steve’s arms felt safe, and after grumbling faintly about Steve being an actual caveman Danny had relaxed into his arms, resting his head on Steve.

“If I were an ‘actual caveman,’ I’d have just thrown you over my shoulder,” Steve had said into Danny’s hair. Danny smiled into Steve’s chest, the cuts on his lip smarting.

Steve brought Danny into his room and gently deposited him onto his bed.

“I’m pretty sure Junior is staying at Tani’s,” Danny said. “I can just sleep in his room like I did when he was gone.”

Steve went over to his dresser and grabbed a t-shirt and boxers. “My bed’s bigger,” Steve said, tossing the clothes to Danny. “You need help changing?”

Danny shook his head, trying and failing to stop the blood rushing to his cheeks. “Where are you going to sleep?”

“I’m going to roll out my old Navy sleeping bag. I’ll be right here on the floor next to you.” Steve shucked off his own shirt and pulled on a t-shirt. It was criminal how taut the muscles in his chest were. Danny pushed away the thought as he fumbled with the t-shirt.

“You should at least sleep on a bed. I’ll be okay if you’re in Junior’s room,” Danny said, struggling to get his shirt off.

Steve was at his side in an instant, easing the shirt off and helping Danny pull the fresh one on. “I’m not leaving your side tonight,” Steve whispered and Danny met his eyes, seeing the fresh pain there. He realized Steve wasn’t refusing to leave him alone just for Danny’s sake, at least not entirely.

“I’m okay,” Danny said, even though he wasn’t sure it was true. “You saved me.” That part he can be sure of, at least. Steve looks up at him sharply, with a look in his eyes so intense that Danny freezes. Almost unconsciously Steve ran a hand along Danny’s face and in that moment, Danny was certain Steve was going to lean and kiss him. But then Steve remembered himself and slid away from Danny.

Danny woke up screaming at 3:22am. A dream, Daiyu Mei stabbing him in the stomach as Steve watched helplessly from the screen of her cell phone. Steve was off the floor and next to Danny so fast that Danny thought he was being attacked until he recognizes the firm strength of the arms wrapping around him.

“Shhh, Danny, it’s okay, it was just a dream, it’s okay,” Steve whispered. Danny’s hands curled into Steve’s shirt, clutching at it as he trembled. Steve held Danny until Danny calmed down, and then he pulled the covers up and slid into bed next to Danny.

Steve and Danny shared the bed for the rest of the week.

* * *

The dreams haven’t stopped. Danny feels jumpy and fragile and he doesn’t understand why he can’t just get over it. He’s been in dangerous situations literally hundreds of times before. Pinned down, shot at, trapped, actually shot. He’s even been kidnapped a few times before. He doesn’t understand what’s different about this time.

Other than the fact that Steve’s gone. That he left even though Danny was still having nightmares. Was it because of their last night together? Danny had insisted on making dinner, though Steve hovered behind him. Danny could barely stand for more than five minutes at a time, and every time his legs started to quiver, Steve was by his side, either supporting him with a gentle hand to his hip or easing him into a chair to rest while Steve took over stirring the sauce.

They’d shared a bottle of wine and talked about nothing significant over dinner. Danny had wanted to ask if Steve was still planning to go on his trip and when, but he’d been afraid to. Danny didn’t want to spoil the mood, and he knew it would because by then he’d figured out that he didn’t want Steve to leave.

It feels like a lifetime ago when Danny thinks back to how he’d loathed Steve during the early days of their partnership. Of course, Danny had stopped hating Steve a long time ago. The day when Steve turned up at Meka’s wake dressed in his uniform had melted Danny’s heart towards his maddening Neanderthal of a partner. But Danny had never appreciated how Steve had just swooped in taken him from the HPD. Danny jokingly referred to it as a kidnapping in their therapy sessions, but that was what it had felt like to him. Danny hadn’t been all that happy in the HPD, but he’d have liked to have had a choice.

It set the tone for their whole relationship. Steve’s possessiveness of Danny crept into every aspect of their lives, from Steve driving Danny’s car to the way he insisted on inserting himself into every aspect of Danny’s life. And for his part, Danny had gone from fighting against it to… actually enjoying the way Steve took care of him.

That night, they’d fallen into bed the same way they had over the past week: Steve flopped onto his back, limbs spread carelessly. Danny on his side, curled up, body aching. He’d drifted off to the sound of Steve snoring lightly. 

The pattern over the last week had been the same: Steve fell asleep within moments of his head hitting the pillow. It took Danny longer to drift off. Danny’s nightmares woke them both up, and Steve would sit with him quietly, running a comforting hand up and down Danny’s back until Danny fell back asleep.

Steve was always out of bed first in the morning, going for his morning run and returning to shower before Danny was even awake. By the time Danny opened his eyes, Steve would be dressed, his hair damp from his shower, smiling down at Danny. “Time to get up, Sunshine,” he’d say before going downstairs to make them both breakfast.

So that last morning, Danny was surprised to wake up and find Steve still in bed. And not just still in bed—curled around Danny. One of his hands rested lightly on Danny’s hip. His body was wrapped around Danny’s, and Danny’s eyes widened when he realized exactly what was pressing into his ass. 

Danny had turned around, and found himself face to face with Steve, who was half awake and gazing at Danny with a look in his eyes Danny couldn’t describe. Steve had frozen, as though he’d been caught out. He pulled back, his hand falling away from Danny’s hip. He’d rolled over and yawned loudly and obviously.

“Oh man, I must have overslept,” Steve said. Danny was still trying to process what had just happened and how he felt about it. Danny sat up, pulling the blanket around himself. 

Steve shot out of bed, standing. Danny’s eyes couldn’t help but drift to the tent in his pants. Danny felt his face go red. But why? Guys woke up hard in the morning, that was nothing earth-shattering. Maybe it was because that hard on had just been pressed into Danny’s ass. And Danny wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

“I’m going for my run,” Steve had said, abruptly turning and grabbing his running clothes. Danny had giggled—actually giggled—after his big, handsome partner awkwardly lumbered out of the room. It was only once Steve had left the house that Danny realized he’d slept through the night without a single nightmare. Danny smiled to himself.

While Steve was out running, Danny had hobbled down the stairs and started making pancakes, figuring they’d be a nice treat for Steve after his run. Danny even buttered them for Steve.

When Steve got back to the house, he hadn’t come straight into the kitchen. Danny heard him shuffling around in the front closet. “Hey, hurry up! I don’t want these pancakes to get cold,” Danny called.

Steve walked in, carrying a large green bag. His travel bag. “What’s that for?” Danny asked.

Steve couldn’t meet his eyes. “I had a ticket for next week, but I, uh, moved it up. I’m leaving tonight.”

Danny’s face fell and he had to turn away so that Steve wouldn’t see the liquid that had sprung up unbidden, filling his eyes and threatening to spill over onto the stack of golden pancakes he’d labored over.

* * *

No one visits Danny today. He gets several calls, most of which he ignores. He picks up for Grover, who hems and haws before asking Danny how he feels about Grace and Will taking a trip together over the summer. Danny has several choice expletives to describe his feelings about their plan, which Grover patiently listens to. Grover then offers to bring over a six pack so that night so they can discuss the ground rules for the trip and Danny sighs. He tells Grover maybe another night. He’s suddenly so tired. Danny hears the concern in Grover’s voice as they exchange goodbyes.

Will is a good kid. Danny just isn’t ready for Grace to grow up. He knows why Grace and Will went to Grover first, and in February. They were counting on Grover to calm Danny down and for Danny to take a couple of months to get used to the idea. Danny sighs, wondering if everyone in his life finds his emotional reactions exhausting.

Eddie is at his feet, wagging his tail, looking up at Danny adoringly. “At least you like me, right, Eddie?” Danny asks the dog. Eddie’s tail picks up speed.

“Let’s get you outside to do your business so you can help me get up the stairs and into bed,” Danny says, opening the back door for Eddie. Eddie bounds out in front of him.

Danny watches as Eddie sniffs around for the perfect place to take care of business.

And then he hears a sound in the house.

Danny freezes. Heart racing. 

Someone is coming for him.

His gun… his gun is in the kitchen, in one of the drawers.

Danny glances back at Eddie. He knows Eddie is a police dog, but he’s not going to let anything happen to Eddie on his watch. 

He slips into the kitchen. His hands are shaking but he manages to slide open the drawer with the gun inside open silently and pull it out.

Danny raises the gun just as the intruder comes around the corner. The man’s own gun is raised.

“Stop! Hands up,” Danny says, trying to keep the trembling out of his voice.

Only then does he look at the man holding the gun.

Steve.

Danny isn’t sure he can trust his eyes and then suddenly the world is spinning and his cane is on the floor and so is the gun and his legs are giving out and Steve’s face disappears as Danny falls to the ground.


	3. Endgame Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Steve and Danny are reunited.

Chapter 3  
Steve

One minute, Danny is standing in the kitchen, looking terrified, aiming a gun at him. Steve glances at his own raised gun, the déjà vu not lost on him.

The next moment, Danny just crumples, his gun and cane clattering to the floor as Danny collapses. Steve drops his gun and leaps forward to catch Danny before he hits the ground. 

“Hey, hey, I’ve got you,” Steve says, cradling Danny in his arms. Danny’s shaking, his skin cold and clammy. Steve can feel Danny’s shoulder blades; he’s lost weight. Steve gently lifts Danny, guiding him into one of the kitchen chairs. 

Danny’s fingers have a death grip on his bicep and he’s trembling and fuck, Steve recognizes PTSD when he sees it. He kicks himself internally again for leaving Danny when Danny so clearly still needed him.

Or not. Once Danny is settled in the chair, he lets go of Steve and pulls away, fixing Steve with a furious gaze. “What the hell is the matter with you?” Danny asks angrily. “You creep in here waving a gun like some sort of bandit? What if I’d shot you? What if you’d shot Eddie?”

At the sound of his name, Eddie bounds up to the door, tail wagging eagerly. He barks several times. Steve rocks back on his heels and goes to the door to let the excited dog in. Eddie practically tackles him. At least someone is happy to see him.

“Great answer, Steven. I guess it’s about what I should expect after you ignored almost every text I sent you,” Danny huffs. 

Steve stands up. “Why are you yelling at me?” he asks plaintively. He didn’t expect Danny to just brush aside those two weeks of ignored texts, but he was hoping for something a little warmer than open hostility.

“I’ve hardly heard from you in two weeks and then you just walk back in here with no warning or explanation!” Steve’s trying to follow, but he’s so focused on taking Danny in with his eyes: his cheeks are flushed, eyes flashing, hair growing out and just a little bit messy. He’s wearing an old t-shirt of Steve’s; it’s big on him and Steve just wants to take Danny into his arms and kiss away all of these protests. 

“Steven, are you even listening to me?” Danny asks. “Where’s Catherine?” His eyes wander to the doorway, as though Catherine could be waiting in the living room, listening to this exchange without comment.

“She’s getting a hotel room,” Steve answers, leaning down to pick up Danny’s cane. He’s concerned that Danny is still using it. He knows Danny twisted his knee during his escape attempt, but it should have been healed enough by now that Danny could walk without a cane.

Steve holds the cane out to Danny. Danny swipes it from him, but doesn’t rise to his feet. “So you’re here to what? Get a few things and go join her?” Danny asks, and Steve can hear threads of hurt behind the anger.

“No, no,” Steve says, kneeling at Danny’s feet. “I came back for you, Danny. I never should have left.” He reaches for one of Danny’s hands, taking it in his own.

Danny blinks down at him, confused. “Why?” Danny asks, and the question breaks his heart.

Steve knows he was a jerk to leave. To rush out of town the way he did. That last morning, he’d dreamt of holding Danny in his arms. Of kissing Danny. Of Danny beneath him. Of pushing himself into Danny. When he woke up, he was hard as a rock, curled around Danny. His fingers at Danny’s hip itched to pull down the thin fabric separating his cock from Danny’s ass. He longed to bury himself inside Danny.

These were the very caveman tendencies Danny accused him of, but Steve’s desire for Danny was overwhelming that morning. How much longer could he deny it for? How long until the dam within him broke and all of that lust, desire, and love just burst forth?

And then Danny had turned around, blue eyes wide and soft in the morning light. Danny had looked so confused, so vulnerable and Steve had realized what he’d been contemplating and he’d ripped himself from that bed before he did something he’d never be able to take back.

He’d been thinking of cancelling the ticket altogether up until that morning. Instead, he moved his departure date up and thought that running halfway across the world would let him hide from these feelings.

How utterly and completely foolish he’d been.

Danny pulls his hand out of Steve’s and struggles to his feet, forcing Steve to move back. Steve tries to help him but Danny pushes his hand away. “I’m fine,” he says through gritted teeth. An obvious lie.

“Danny--,” Steve starts, but Danny holds a hand up.

“Stop, just stop. You don’t get to just come back and… and….” Danny gesticulates wildly with the one hand not gripping his cane. 

Steve sighs. He knows he shouldn’t have thought this would be easy. And he didn’t. Since when is anything with Danny ever easy? But he may have been guilty of the kind of wishful thinking that led him to think it might go a little better than this. 

So before he thinks it through, he just blurts it out. “I love you.”

Danny is not mollified. “Yeah, I love you, too, you jerk. Which is why I’m not letting you off the hook for ignoring my texts.”

Steve shakes his head. “Danny… I love you,” Steve says again. And Danny stops, the words starting to sink in. He stills, watching Steve with an unreadable expression on his face. So Steve presses on before he loses his nerve. “I’m in love with you, Danny. That’s why I left. Why I couldn’t answer your texts. Because all I saw when I closed my eyes was you chained up and hurt, you unconscious in my arms, you in that hospital bed looking so fragile.”

Steve swallows, waiting for some sort of snarky interjection, but Danny is just listening. “If I’d lost you, Danny… I…,” Steve trails off, feeling raw and exposed. “I didn’t want to live in a world without you in it.”

Danny bites his lip, and Steve knows he’s weighing his next words carefully. It’s probably not a good sign. He’s not wrong. “So let me get this straight, Steven,” Danny says. “I get kidnapped, beat up, shot, and I’m so bad off that you’re worried I’m going to die… and then when that doesn’t happen you decide hey, Danny can barely stand up on his own but I think I’ll leave him and go on a world tour with my ex-girlfriend.”

“Danny--,” Steve starts but Danny holds up a hand.

“I’m not finished. So then, after two weeks of globetrotting, you decide to come back and profess your undying love. That’s your grand plan? Your big play?” Danny asks.

“Well, uh, I—,” Steve stammers. Why is it that Danny can make him feel like an awkward little boy with just a few lashes of his sharp tongue?

“Why are your lips moving?” Danny snaps. He’s flushed, working himself up into a righteous fury. Steve lifts his hands in surrender. “In civilized society, when you blame yourself for someone’s kidnapping and decide you want to tell him you’re in love with him, you don’t first break his heart by leaving him to fend for himself when he needs you!”  
At the words “break his heart,” Steve shoots across the room, drawn like a magnet to Danny. As Danny finishes his rant, Steve takes Danny into his arms. Enough with the talking. Danny has always been better at it anyway. It is crystal clear in this moment how Steve can make his point.

And so without further ado, he presses his mouth to Danny’s. Caught off balance, Danny has no choice but to lean into Steve, head tilted back as Steve kisses him. Danny’s lips are so soft beneath his own, and for one perfect moment, Danny surrenders, lips parting for Steve’s probing tongue. Danny’s fingers curl into his shirt and he kisses Steve back and Steve knows they’ll be fine, because for as much as they fight and argue, it turns out that they’re very, very good at this.

Steve’s hands move over Danny’s back, feeling Danny’s shapely body beneath his thin shirt. He pulls Danny in closer, deepening the kiss. Utter bliss coming over him because this… this is heaven.

And then Danny pulls back and shoves him away so hard that Steve stumbles a bit and Danny has to grab onto a chair to hold himself up. Danny looks so beautiful, cheeks flushed, eyes wide, lips slightly swollen that Steve wants to charge back in, but he knows better.

“No, Steve. No,” Danny says. “You don’t get to just come back and sweep me up like everything is okay. I’m upset. And there’s too much we have to figure out.”

Danny grabs a hold of his cane and hobbles past Steve. “I’m going to bed. Upstairs. That’s where I sleep now. Don’t you dare follow me,” he fixes Steve with a withering gaze. Steve raises his hands in surrender. Danny rounds the corner and moves up the stairs.

Eddie casts a baleful look at Steve before following Danny up the stairs. “Et tu, Eddie?” Steve jokes. He closes his eyes. This was never going to be easy. But tonight is going to be torture wherever he sleeps, knowing that Danny is mere feet away from him but just so far out of reach.


	4. Endgame Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Danny wrestles with Steve's return, and the idea of a romantic relationship with his partner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first story I've ever posted, and I realize I probably should have listed it as explicit rather than mature (though I don't remember seeing that option when I first posted it). I will try to remember to add in a warning before the chapters will explicit content. This is one of them.

Chapter 4  
Danny

Danny can’t sleep. Of course he can’t sleep. Steve is downstairs on the couch, tossing and turning and keeping Danny up.

Okay, so maybe Steve’s obvious discomfort as he tries to contort his large frame to fit on the too small couch isn’t the only thing keeping Danny up.

At least part of it is that kiss. Danny has only ever been into women. Only ever wanted to kiss women. Period, end of story. At least, until Steve came along. It happened gradually—first Steve invaded his life, then his personal space. Danny noticed the way his partner liked to get close to him, to lean in just a little too close, or put a hand on Danny’s shoulder when he didn’t need to. And then there was that time Steve set off a grenade in a shop and covered Danny’s body with his own to protect him from the blast. The way Steve looked at him, really looked at him, like Danny was the only thing he saw.

The big lug had grown on Danny. The last thing he’d expected was that this reckless, crazy Neanderthal would end up being his best friend. Danny wasn’t sure when he started to suspect Steve’s feelings for him transcended friendship. When Steve refused to walk away when Danny was in the crosshairs of a bomb? When Steve signed them up for couples therapy? When Steve spent more time with him than Lynn on their accidental couples’ retreat Valentine’s Day trip? When Steve got upset about Danny’s plans to retire? When Steve insisted on being the one to expose himself to radiation to disarm a bomb rather than let Danny do it? When Steve threw himself into Danny’s dream of opening a restaurant?

So it’s been a while, though he did his best to push his suspicions aside. What Danny can’t pinpoint is when his own feelings changed. He’d been pushing Steve to date for two years, over-investing himself in Steve’s love life so that he could pretend he didn’t see the way Steve felt about him. Or was it so he could pretend he wasn’t starting to feel the same way about Steve that Steve seemed to feel about him?

Of course, they both hid from it. Danny realizes that now. He remembers when Kono caught them in Steve’s office one day, when Danny was showing Steve how some goofball was putting his hand on Danny’s sister’s back. Steve had moved away and made a face when Kono asked if she was interrupting, but then the next chance he got, Steve’s hand was on Danny’s lower back as they walked out of the room. Danny swatted it away but he flushed a little at the intimate contact.

Well, there’s no denying it anymore. Steve had just flat out professed his feelings, in a way Danny didn’t think he was cable of. Danny remembers how hard it was to get Steve to open up to him about why Steve had stopped playing guitar as a teenager. The guy who once kept that locked up like a state secret had just stood in the kitchen pouring his heart out to Danny.

And Danny’s own response shocked him. Where had that come from? Accusing Steve of breaking his heart. Was it true? Danny had never felt so alone these last two weeks, sleeping in Steve’s bed without Steve. Of course he missed Steve. Steve was his best friend. Had it smarted when Danny texted Steve over and over only to get no response, aside from the occasional picture from Steve’s travels? Sure. Did Danny curl up each night in Steve’s bed feeling more alone than he’d ever felt in his entire life, even after Rachel left him? Yes. Was it because just as he’d realized he might return Steve’s feelings, Steve had up and taken off?

The sound of Steve’s snores drifts upstairs. It figures Steve fell asleep first. He comes back and dumps this big bomb on Danny and now he gets to sleep easy, while Danny can’t shut off these thoughts racing through his head.

That kiss. It was good.

No.

It was more than good. Danny’s stomach flips over when he thinks about Steve’s lips pressed against his own. The gentle way Steve’s tongue had pushed into his mouth. How he had melted into Steve’s arms, surrendering to his partner’s passion… until he’d remembered that Steve had left him, causing Danny to shove Steve away from him.

Danny loses count of how many times he replays that kiss long before sleep finally overtakes him.

* * *

The smell of bacon frying wakes Danny. He rolls over, wincing as he does so because he still hurts. He glances towards the dog bed in the corner of the room but Eddie isn’t in it. He’s probably already downstairs, the traitor. Danny reaches for his cane.

It’s not there. Danny frowns, sitting up. He feels around by the dresser, where he props the cane up. It’s gone. He checks the floor, but there’s no sign of it. Danny knows he didn’t misplace his cane. He’s got a pretty good idea about what happened to it.

Danny’s knee is stiff and he leans heavily against the railing as he makes his way down the stairs. By the time he reaches the kitchen, he’s annoyed bordering on furious. Steve is cheerily scrambling eggs as Eddie waits eagerly at his feet, tail sweeping back and forth across the floor. A full plate of bacon sits nearby on the counter.

“Where the hell is my cane, Steven?” Danny asks.

Steve looks up and grins at him. “Morning, Sunshine. Bacon?” He holds out the plate. Still glaring at him, Danny hobbles over and takes a piece off the plate. He inhales it. Danny might be the better cook in most cases, but Steve has breakfast down.

“You can’t distract me with food. Why did you take my cane? And where did you put it?” Danny grills him.

Steve fixes Danny with one of those looks. The one where it feels like he’s looking into Danny’s soul… and undressing Danny with his eyes at the same time. “Your hair looks good. You growing it out on the sides? I like it.” 

Danny self-consciously raises a hand to smooth down his hair, which gets wild and messy overnight. Steve watches him, that dopey happy grin he’s only ever directed at Danny on his face. He flicks the burner off and moves towards Danny, sweeping him up in his arms. Before Danny can protest, Steve has leaned in and pressed his lips to Danny’s. And dammit if Danny doesn’t melt into his arms. Why does Steve have to be such a good kisser?

Steve pushes Danny back against the counter gently, deepening the kiss and slipping his hands under Danny’s shirt. Danny surrenders, just for a moment, returning Steve’s kisses. For just a moment, he lets himself feel relief… even joy that Steve is back, that he came back for Danny.

At least for now. Until the next time he leaves. The thought makes Danny grow cold and he pulls back. Disappointment floods Steve’s face as Danny ducks out of his embrace and stumbles away.

“I can barely walk,” Danny grumbles, trying to recover his composure. “I’m serious, Steve. Where’s my cane?”

Steve frowns. “The doctor said you should be walking on your own by now. You don’t want to become dependent on that cane, Danny.”

“You don’t know what I want,” Danny shoots back. “It’s not your job to make that call.” 

He can see the irritation in Steve’s face. “It’s my job to take care of you,” Steve replies.

“According to who?” Danny asks. He can feel his face flushing. He’s reached furious now, heading towards apoplectic. 

Steve’s brow furrows, as though being questioned about this never occurred to him as even a remote possibility. He stills, his eyes taking in Danny. “I told you,” Steve says quietly. “You’re my Danno.”

“Then why do you keep leaving me?” Danny fires back. He can hear the hurt in his own voice. Steve hears it, too, and moves towards Danny, but Danny draws back. Steve is not going to kiss this away.

“What do you mean I keep leaving you?” Steve asks. He genuinely looks confused.

“This isn’t the first time you’ve just left. What about when you went to chase down Wo Fat? Or when you went to North Korea with Jenna? Or Afghanistan with Catherine. Or Joe’s ranch. Or Mexico to get your mother,” Danny lists them off, feeling a little guilty as he does so. He knows that each time, Steve felt like he had a mission. But why did those missions always involve leaving Danny behind?

Steve’s intense gaze doesn’t waver. “Those were missions, Danny,” he says slowly. “I didn’t just leave you arbitrarily. I have a duty to serve and protect. After… after what happened with Daiyu Mei, I thought you would understand that there’s no one I want to protect more than you.” 

The vulnerability in Steve’s voice sparks a twinge of guilt in Danny. He brushes it aside. “That’s why you really got on that plane, isn’t it, Steve? It wasn’t to protect me. It was to protect yourself from the guilt you felt.”

“Guilt?” Steve asks. “You think it was just guilt? Danny, when she took you… when she hurt you… I didn’t think I’d survive that. If you hadn’t made it… I wouldn’t have been able to go on.” Steve swallows, his eyes wide and liquid.

Danny bites his lip. Steve is so clumsy with his feelings—he doesn’t know how to handle grief and fear. Danny talks about things that upset and bother him; he shares his feelings liberally but Steve just locks everything away until it all comes up and overwhelms him and makes him get on a plane to run away from all of those emotions. Danny sighs. Steve is a big, dumb Neanderthal lug.

But he’s Danny’s big, dumb Neanderthal lug.

“But I did make it,” Danny says.

Steve gets that look in his eyes again, the one that telegraphs just how much he’d like to see Danny divested of his clothes. And Danny is finally admitting to himself that it might not be the worst thing in the world if he let Steve take them off.

“Come here,” Danny whispers, and that’s all it gets for Steve to traverse the distance between them at lightning speed and take Danny into his arms. Steve’s lips are on his and Steve’s hands seem to be everywhere, running up and down Danny’s body, cupping his ass to pull him in closer as Steve deepens the kiss. Danny surrenders to it completely, wrapping his arms around Steve’s neck and letting Steve hold him up. Dammit, why does it feel so good to be in Steve’s arms?

Steve presses Danny up against the counter, breaking off their kiss to run his mouth down Danny’s jawline and neck. His hands wander under Danny’s shirt and Danny closes his eyes, leaning his head back, surrendering to it.

Danny’s cell phone rings, pulling him back. He turns his head to look towards the opposite counter, where it sits, lighting up.

Steve removes his mouth from Danny’s collarbone long enough to drawl, “Ignore it.” His voice is heavy with lust, sending a shiver down Danny’s spine.

“If I ignore it, Five-0 will be here in ten minutes. At least three of them,” Danny breathes, reluctantly pulling away from Steve.

Steve doesn’t let him go easily, locking his arms around Danny’s waist. He bows his head towards Danny’s, whispering, “I can do a lot in ten minutes.”

The phone stops ringing, sending the call to voicemail. Danny laughs, “You’re incorrigible.” He turns, touching his forehead to Steve’s, lips itching to feel Steve’s pressed against them again.

The phone starts ringing again. Steve sighs in frustration. “It’s Tani,” Danny says. “She’ll keep calling until I pick up. She’s probably getting in the car now.” Danny reluctantly pulls away from Steve, limping over to the phone. “She’ll be excited to see you.”

Steve clears his throat awkwardly. “Uh, about that….”

Danny turns sharply. “She doesn’t know you’re back?”

“None of them do,” Steve admits, looking sheepish.

Danny ignores the ringing phone. “Why not?”

Steve shrugs. “I… I’m not sure what to say to them,” he says.

Danny studies him as the phone falls silent for a second time. “You’re not sure you’re coming back,” he says. Steve looks at him with those big eyes and Danny rolls his eyes. “I hate lying. Especially to our friends,” Danny grumbles as the phone starts ringing for a third time.

He picks it up. “Tani! Can’t a guy use the bathroom in peace?”

She laughs. “Junior and I were about to turn on the siren and head over,” Tani chides him.

“You can save the gas,” Danny says, feeling Steve’s eyes on him. “I’m fine.” 

Tani isn’t so easily dissuaded. “You sound kind of out of breath,” she comments.

Danny glances over at Steve, knowing he’d be beaming with pride if he heard that. “Yeah, well, I had to run from the bathroom. My cell phone was in the other room.” 

Tani laughs. “Juns and I can bring over breakfast. I know you miss having a personal chef.”

Danny rolls his eyes. “I didn’t have a personal chef. He just cooked me breakfast sometimes,” he says, meeting Steve’s eyes. “I’m okay. Go to work. I’m about to take Eddie out for a long walk.”

“Your knee feeling better?” she asks.

Danny glares at Steve. “Sort of. I’m going to see how it goes without my cane for part of it.”

“That’s great!” Tani enthuses, and Danny wonders if everyone has been concerned about him relying on the cane for too long. Not that he’ll share that with Steve. Danny bids her adieu and ends the call, relieved to have diverted Tani but feeling guilty for not mentioning Steve’s presence to her.

“Thanks for not saying anything to her,” Steve says.

“You’re not going to be able to hide from them for long,” Danny replies. 

Steve sighs. “I know that, Danny. I just want a little time to figure things out. And to have you to myself.” His eyes roam Danny’s body leaving no room to mistake his meaning.

Danny flushes. Why does Steve have this effect on him? “Where’s my cane? Get it, please, so we can take Eddie for that walk.”

Steve shakes his head. “It’s time for you to try walking without it,” he says. Ever the control freak. Steve extends his arm. “When you get tired, you can lean on me.”

* * *  
The walk is nice. Danny gingerly tries putting weight on his knee, walking on it tentatively. It’s stiff and slightly painful, but not as bad as what he was expecting. When he gets tired, he wraps his hand around Steve’s extended elbow and leans against Steve. He’s aware they probably look like an old married couple, and when they cross an elderly duo, the wife’s hand holding onto her husband’s arm just the way Danny is holding onto Steve, Danny smiles… until he feels Steve stiffen slightly.

Danny looks up at Steve. Though Steve has always been one to touch Danny at every opportunity, Danny can tell he’s still not entirely comfortable with being public with … whatever this is. Danny remembers when they were on a stakeout at an old lady’s apartment and one of her neighbors had mistaken them for a couple. Steve had fumblingly blown their cover rather than go along with her assumption. Danny wonders now if it was because Steve didn’t want his feelings found out… or if he wasn’t comfortable with the idea that he had feelings for Danny in the first place.

The woman smiles back at Danny and her husband nods his head in a friendly way. Danny feels Steve relax a little, and he smiles to himself. Maybe Steve just needs some time to get used to this new dynamic between them. Danny knows he himself does. He gets nervous when he thinks about Steve and him doing more than they’ve already done. Nervous… but also excited. Danny wonders how quickly things would have progressed this morning had Tani’s call not interrupted them.

“What’s going on in that head?” Steve asks, leaning down so his mouth is right beside Danny’s ear. Danny turns to look at him and sees Steve’s eyes are clouded over with lust.

“I’m thinking about how I still need my cane, you jerk,” Danny lies. It isn’t totally untrue. Danny’s tired, his knee has started to ache, and he’s leaning heavily into Steve. But with Steve looking at him like that, it’s not the first thing on Danny’s mind.

Steve just smiles. “Here I am thinking about how nice it is to be back here, back home, with you holding onto me. This feels right,” he says and Danny’s heart flip flops a little bit, glad that Steve is happy to be home. He leans a little closer to Steve, thinking if Steve wanted to kiss him right now it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, but suddenly Steve tenses again and whips his head around, eyes locking on to a jogger coming towards them. A pretty woman, who starts to smile when her eyes land on Steve and then a flash of disappointment crosses her face when she registers Danny leaning against him. Danny frowns as she passes, wondering if Steve will ever be entirely comfortable being in public with him like this. As a couple.

A couple.

Is that what they are?

Danny feels Steve’s eyes on him but he keeps his eyes fixed on the ground in front of him, turning his focus on avoiding stumbling and needing to lean on Steve more than he already is.

* * *

Danny withdraws when they get back home, saying he needs to lie down. Steve looks at him with concern but doesn’t argue with him, so Danny takes himself back to bed and falls asleep, making up for the previous sleepless night. When he wakes for lunch and goes downstairs, Steve is gone. He’s left a note saying he’ll be back by dinner.

Danny spends the afternoon reading a crime thriller in the living room, Eddie dozing contently next to the couch.

It’s Steve’s fault that he can’t concentrate on what was a gripping thriller 24 hours ago. It’s annoying that Steve has just thudded back into Danny’s life, declared himself to be in love with Danny, turned Danny’s world upside down with just a few kisses, and now is casually out who knows where as though things are all wrapped up here, as if Danny is a box he’s checked off his to do list.

When Steve finally returns, it’s almost dark. He bursts in the front door carrying take out. “I picked up Indian takeout,” he says casually to Danny on his way to the kitchen.

“Hey to you, too,” Danny says, and he hears Steve sigh as he sets the take out on the kitchen table. Danny gingerly lifts himself off the couch, following Steve into the kitchen.

“Where were you?” Danny asks, as he goes to get Eddie’s dinner because heaven forbid Steve remember to feed his own dog. 

Steve doesn’t turn around as he removes the take out containers from the bag. “Just out, driving around a bit,” he says. Then after a moment he adds, “I stopped to see Dad.”

Danny softens a little. He knows how hard this last month has been for Steve, and how much he’s been reminded of the loss of his father.

Somehow Steve crosses the room without Danny hearing him, because the next thing Danny knows, Steve’s hands are on his hips and his body is pressed to Danny’s back, his mouth nuzzling Danny’s hair. “He would have liked you,” Steve says quietly.

“Oh yeah?” Danny asks. Steve trails a hand down Danny’s arm, interlacing his fingers with Danny’s and raising Danny’s to his lips, kissing his hand. It’s such a sweet, loving gesture that Danny shivers. “Do you think he would have liked me for you?” Danny ventures.

Steve sighs. “I don’t know,” he says. “That was… I talked to him about that today. But I’m never going to really know the answer.” 

Danny rubs Steve’s hand with his thumb. “I bet he would have wanted to see you happy.”

Steve nuzzles Danny’s hair once more before stepping back and pulling Danny towards the table by their linked hands. “Come here. You hungry?” He gently guides Danny to a chair and deposits him in it. Steve swings back to the counter and drops Eddie’s food bowl on the ground for the eager dog before taking his own seat.

The food is good, the company even better. All of these complicated other feelings aside, Steve is Danny’s best friend. Danny lets himself acknowledge how much he missed Steve these last few weeks.

As Danny finishes up his dinner, he catches Steve looking at him intently. “What? Do I have food on my face?”

Steve shakes his head. “How did I ever think I could be happy without you?” he asks. He crosses the distance between them and kneels in front of Danny’s chair. “I’d like to take you upstairs now.”

Danny shivers, because he knows what ‘upstairs’ means and he isn’t sure he’s ready for all that entails. He’s never been with another man, never thought of being with another man and yet somehow he hears himself whisper, “Okay.”

Steve sweeps Danny into his arms. Danny laughs at him. “Who do you think you are, Rhett Butler?” Danny asks as Steve carries him to the stairs.

“I know your knee is still giving you trouble,” Steve says, a smile playing at his lips.

“Oh yeah? Didn’t bother you this morning when you stole my cane,” Danny retorts. 

Steve smirks. Danny shakes his head as they reach the bedroom. Steve deposits Danny on the bed, pawing at his clothes like an overeager teenager. Before Danny knows it, Steve has stripped him naked, tossing his clothes aside messily. His eyes scan Danny’s body. “God, Danno, you’re so beautiful,” he breathes.

Danny blushes but before he can come up with a response, Steve’s lips are back on his, and Steve’s hands are everywhere, roaming Danny’s body hungrily. Steve shifts and Danny can feel just how excited Steve is. He reaches out and with shaky hands, unzips Steve’s pants. He slides them and Steve’s boxers down and pulls Steve’s cock out.

It’s strange, holding another man’s dick. Steve’s dick. Steve fumbles for something in the pocket of his jeans and pulls out a tube of lubrication and Danny realizes Steve’s trip today didn’t just include a visit to the graveyard.

“Here,” Steve breathes, squeezing some of the lube onto Danny’s hand. He guides Danny’s hand to his dick and wraps Danny’s fingers around it. Steve works Danny’s hand up and down it as he trails kisses down Danny’s neck. Steve’s cock is hardening even further as Danny’s hand moves up and down. Steve releases Danny’s hand and lets him continue on his own. Danny’s own body starts to respond; to his surprise, being intimate with Steve isn’t as strange as he feared it would be.

Suddenly Danny feels several wet fingers pressing against the entrance to his body. Steve’s large fingers slide into him, stretching him uncomfortably and Danny freezes, letting go of Steve’s dick.

“What are you doing?” Danny asks, trying to shift his ass away from Steve’s hand but Steve only pushes his fingers in deeper. Danny’s erection softens as he starts to panic at the intrusion.

“The more lube the better,” Steve whispers. “I don’t want to hurt you.” The lust in his voice is palpable.

Danny glares at Steve. “I must have missed the conversation where we decided exactly who is fucking whom,” Danny snaps. Nerves quickly turn to irritation, bordering on anger.

Steve looks at him completely baffled. “Huh?” he asks. Danny pushes Steve away, finally getting free of his fingers. He can feel the lube inside of him, cool and wet. 

“I suppose you’ve got this all worked out in your head, Steven,” Danny says. “But it would be nice if you consulted me.”

Steve sighs and Danny can read the ‘here we go again’ in his expression. “This is new for both of us,” Steve says. “I just… um… I figured….”

“That it was just going to be like you driving my car,” Danny says, getting angrier by the second.

“Well… yeah,” Steve offers him a lopsided smile. “I like to drive.”

Steve is used to that charming smile getting him whatever he wants. Well, not tonight. “Forget it, Steve,” Danny slides back and wriggles under the covers, hiding his body from Steve. “It’s not happening.”

Steve looks utterly baffled as to how the night took this turn. A flash of irritation crosses his face. “Come on Danny. Don’t do this. What about…,” he gestures to his painfully hard cock.

“I assume you can take care of that yourself,” Danny huffs, turning away from Steve and curling up. He hears Steve curse under his breath before he storms off.

Danny feels guilty as soon as Steve exits the room. Of course Steve assumed he would get to fuck Danny. The truth is, Danny has been expecting this, that Steve would dominate in the bedroom as much as he does in life. Danny spent part of the afternoon googling bottoming, equal parts curious and nervous about what it entailed. But would it have killed Steve to just ask him how he felt about it? 

Danny snuggles into the covers, already missing Steve’s hands on his body. Part of him wishes he could call Steve back, but his pride won’t let him budge. And the other part of him is genuinely mad that Steve just thought he could waltz back into Danny’s life, declare his love, and just take Danny. 

Danny is both a little surprised and relieved that Steve didn’t try to push him. He’s won this fight, but why does it feel like they both lost? He sighs, closing his eyes and wishing for sleep to come, but once again it eludes him.


	5. Endgame Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Steve ups his game and romances Danny.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is definitely explicit. Definitely, definitely explicit.

Chapter 5  
Steve

Steve bursts into the bathroom, his erection painful now that the object of its desire has firmly shut him down. Steve slams the door to the bathroom shut and grabs a hold of it, closing his eyes and picturing Danny’s taut, curvy body and remembering the feeling of his fingers inside Danny.

Even that little taste was better than he’d ever expected. It was like nothing he’d experienced before. How has denied himself this long? Steve feels like a man lost in the desert who has finally gotten a hold of cool, crisp water, that first taste only increasing his thirst. In his head, he plays it out as though Danny’s protests had never happened. He imagines turning Danny over onto his stomach. Mounting Danny. Entering Danny. Fucking Danny.

Steve comes into his own hand, spilling over onto the toilet seat. He curses as he mops himself and the toilet up. Danny will undo him completely. The primal part of Steve wants to storm back into the bedroom and finish what they’d started. It worked out okay for Rhett Butler, hadn’t it? He thinks of Scarlett O’Hara’s satisfied grin the next morning. Surely Steve could make sure Danny enjoyed it.

Steve shakes his head at the very thought of pushing Danny to do anything without his consent. He’d never force Danny into having sex, no matter how confident he is that he can make Danny enjoy it physically. Steve sighs. Surely he didn’t think it would be that easy with Danny, that Danny would let Steve just whisk him off to bed. Danny fights Steve over everything—from Steve’s enjoyment of butter in his coffee to the reckless way he drives Danny’s car to his penchant for rushing into dangerous situations. Of course Danny wasn’t going to just let Steve fuck him without protest.

Steve finishes up in the bathroom. There’s no way he’s sleeping on the couch again tonight. He storms back into the bedroom. Danny is curled up under the covers, still tantalizingly naked as far as Steve can tell.

Danny turns around when Steve gets into bed. “It’s my bed,” Steve says before Danny can object. But Danny just turns back around and settles his head on his pillow. A little surprised that Danny hasn’t put up a fight, Steve shucks his own clothes and chances crawling under the covers and gently pressing up against Danny, who is indeed still naked. Steve puts a tentative hand on Danny’s hip, and Danny tenses slightly until he sees Steve isn’t going to take it any further. Danny finally relaxes after a few moments, and Steve closes his eyes, inhaling the scene of Danny’s hair. Tomorrow, he thinks. Tomorrow he’ll puzzle out just how he’s going to get Danny to sleep with him. To let him do all the things he’s been dreaming about doing to Danny for years, this subconscious longing that has burst into his consciousness like an avalanche of snow tumbling down the pristine, quiet mountains.

* * *

The next morning, Steve resists the urge to get out of bed before Danny wakes. Instead, he gently runs his hand along the curves of Danny’s body, trying to memorize the muscles in Danny’s arms, the fuzz covering Danny’s chest, the soft swell of Danny’s ass with his fingertips. He’s so gentle that his light, probing touch doesn’t wake Danny at first.

Steve has discerned his miscalculation from the night before. He’s analyzed his missteps and come up with a course correction. Steve has never had much trouble getting women into bed, and the kinds of women he’s drawn to are like him: tough, smart, and wont to compartmentalize their emotions… something Danny Williams has never done. Steve realizes his error, and he knows what he has to do to fix it: he’s going to woo Danny.

“Are you feeling me up, Steven?” Danny’s sleep-laden voice interrupts Steve’s very careful study of his shapely thigh. 

Steve nuzzles Danny’s ear, whispering, “It’s not easy for me to keep my hands off you.” He drops kisses on Danny’s ear, cheek, and neck. “Please don’t ask me to try.”

Danny relaxes into Steve’s embrace. He turns his head, finding Steve’s mouth with his own and damn if kissing Danny Williams isn’t the best way to start the morning. Danny turns over onto his back, reaching out and winding his arms around Steve’s neck.

“Good morning,” Steve breathes.

“Morning,” Danny smiles shyly.

Steve feels his insides melting, turning to mush as he gazes down at Danny. He chances death by running a hand through Danny’s messy morning hair. “How do you feel about breakfast in bed?” he asks.

Danny raises a skeptical eyebrow. “You feeling okay, Steve? Because I think you just suggested breakfast in bed. Next thing you’re going to tell me there’s such a thing as a double Navy shower and I can take a whole six minutes in there.”

Steve grins. “Maybe I’ll forget all about the time if you let me shower with you.”

“Oh yeah? That’s all it takes to get you to bend the rules?” Danny laughs. He pulls Steve down and rewards him with a sexy kiss that puts breakfast and all of the rest of the plans Steve has for the day in jeopardy. He runs his hands down Danny’s body and reaches around to cup Danny’s delicious peach of an ass and pulls him in closer, deepening the kiss.

“I’d bend every rule for you, Danno,” he whispers. “Break ‘em all.” Something like surprise flashes across Danny’s face and a pang of guilt hits Steve in the gut. How had he ever thought leaving Danny was the right decision? And yet when he thinks about the cold calculation in Daiyu Mei’s voice when she told him, “I have the person you care about most in the world,” his stomach sinks. Steve would not survive losing Danny. He knows this now, and it’s terrifying.

Danny brings him back with a soft kiss. Steve deepens it, pressing his hips into Danny and wanting more than anything to pick up where they left off the night before. It takes every ounce of strength Steve has to pull back and lift himself off Danny. Danny’s eyes travel to Steve’s erection and he flushes, which reaffirms for Steve that the only way to go about this is to ease Danny into it.

And so despite the fact that every fiber in his body wants to settle on top of Danny, to kiss him senseless until Danny spreads his legs and lets Steve inside… Steve wills himself off the bed, grabbing a t-shirt and shorts.

“I’m gonna make you eggs and bacon… anything else you want,” Steve says, trying to keep his eyes from roaming Danny’s body, afraid if he lets himself look he won’t be able to step away. 

Danny leans back, resting his head against his hand. “What’s the matter, Steven? See something you like?”

“That’s just cruel,” Steve sputters and Danny laughs at his barefaced desire. Steve half grimaces, half smiles as he hurries out of the room, Danny’s cruel giggles echoing down the hallway as Steve makes haste for a pit stop at the bathroom before continuing on to the kitchen.

* * *

Steve spends the day romancing Danny. Breakfast in bed is followed by a shower that lasts decidedly longer than any Navy shower Steve has ever taken. He takes his time running the washcloth over Danny’s muscled, curvy body. It’s beautiful, painful torture until Steve takes their twin erections in hand, rapidly and somewhat clumsily jerking them both off. Danny laughs at his impatience and Steve responds by pushing Danny into the shower wall and kissing him so aggressively they finally have to stop to catch their breath.

The shower is followed by a stroll on the beach. Steve has never been one for public displays of affection, and the fact that he’s with another man adds another layer of discomfort for him. So it’s a surprise to Steve when he throws caution to the wind, wrapping his arm around Danny’s shoulder and stealing kisses like a horny teenager whenever he can. 

Steve tries to get Danny to go out for lunch, even brandishing his wallet, to prove he fully intends to pay, but Danny demurs, saying he’s happy at the house and suggesting take out instead.

That’s when Steve starts to wonder if Danny’s left the house since he took off over two weeks ago. Danny doesn’t seem to have a problem with walks along the beach. But aside from that? Steve studies Danny as he rifles through take out menus.

“How about we go for a drive? Open the windows, let the wind mess up that hair of yours?” Steve asks.  
Danny’s shoulders tense. “Some of us have to work hard to look this good,” Danny says lightly, but Steve knows him well enough to hear the slight edge in his voice. He studies Danny for a moment.

Of course. How could he be so stupid?

Danny was taken from his car. Violently.

Steve kneels by Danny’s chair. “Hey,” he says gently. Danny looks up at him, expression defensive. “I won’t let anything happen to you. You know that, right?”

Danny looks away. “You can’t promise that, Steve.”

Steve’s stomach flips over, and he feels a flash of rage shoot through him. It took everything he had to not end Daiyu Mei when he had his gun trained on her, the image of Danny bruised and pale in the hospital bed in his head as he looked at her. Part of him still wishes he’d killed her for what she did (and tried to do) to the person he loves more than anything.

Steve found out after the fact that she’d been following him and Danny. That she’d waited until Danny was alone to strike.

“She’s in prison,” Steve tries again.

“Yeah, and look how well that worked out with Wo Fat. Or even Victor Hesse for that matter,” Danny retorts.

Steve swallows. He wants more than anything to tell Danny he’s wrong, that of course Steve can protect him, but if that were true, they wouldn’t be having this conversation in the first place.

“Danny…,” Steve starts.

Danny stops him. “I know it’s ridiculous,” he says. “I’ll get over it. I just want to be back at a hundred percent before I get back in a car, okay?” Danny meets Steve’s gaze and Steve can see the vulnerability in his eyes. Steve wants to kiss away Danny’s fears but they both know it doesn’t work that way.

“How about Chinese takeout?” Danny asks, thrusting a menu at Steve and Steve nods, willing to acquiesce to any kind of food if it will take Danny’s mind off his fears.

* * *

After lunch, Steve suggests they watch a movie. Danny chuckles when he sees Steve’s picked out Brokeback Mountain.

“What?” Steve asks innocently. “I’ve never seen it.”

Danny, sitting on the couch, laughs as he shakes his head. “Of course you haven’t.”

“You have?” Steve asks.

“Yes, Steven, I have. It’s a cinematic masterpiece. Some of us watch movies starring people other than The Rock and Vin Diesel,” Danny retorts.

Steve smirks as he sets up the movie and comes over to the couch to sit down next to Danny. “At least I don’t have to come up with an excuse to do this,” Steve says, putting an arm around Danny and pulling him in close.

Danny shakes his head. “Like you ever did,” he says as he rests his head on Steve’s shoulder.

The movie isn’t half bad. When the two cowboys finally hook up, Steve leans over and whispers, “See? Jake Gyllenhaal likes it.” 

Danny swats him on the arm playfully, blushing slightly. But he doesn’t protest or come back with a witty retort.

After the movie, Steve suggests a swim in the ocean, but Danny demurs. He parks himself in one of the chairs out on the beach with a thick paperback while Steve swims for the better part of an hour, glancing back every so often at Danny.

When Steve finally emerges from the ocean, he beelines for Danny, eliciting protests as he leans over Danny to steal several kisses.

“Steven! You’re dripping all over me!” Danny protests, trying to wriggle out from under Steve. Steve wraps his hands around Danny’s waist to prevent him from escaping. Steve presses several more kisses to Danny’s lips, growing hard as he runs his hands over Danny’s body. How is he going to hold out until tonight? It feels like a lifetime away.

It takes every ounce of restraint he has, but Steve pulls back before the hands he’s allowed to slip under Danny’s thin t-shirt slide it off Danny’s body and…

“I’m going to go shower before dinner,” Steve says.

Is that a slight frown playing at Danny’s sexy mouth? “Want me to get started on dinner?” Danny says, voice a little husky.

Steve shakes his head. “I’m making steaks tonight.”

Danny narrows his eyes. “What are you doing, Steve?”

Steve touches his hand to his chest. “Me? Nothing. I can’t cook dinner for my main dude?”

Danny regards him skeptically. “Eddie’s really in the mood for steak,” Steve jokes. 

This elicits a smile from Danny. “Go. I’m going to finish this chapter.” He holds up his book, which he managed to protect from Steve’s soggy onslaught. Steve smiles all the way back to the house, realizing just how damn happy he is.

* * *

An hour later, Steve is happily grilling steaks as Eddie frolics in the yard. Danny opted for a shower after his, claiming Steve had gotten so much water on him he might as well have gone for a swim. Steve laughed—Danny’s vanity about his appearance has always been equal parts amusing and adorable to Steve.

When Danny saunters out into the yard wearing a black polo and soft white pants that hug his shapely ass and legs, Steve’s breath catches in his throat. He’s always liked looking at Danny, but now that he has permission to do it as often as he likes, he’s wondering if he’ll ever want to bother looking anywhere else.

“See something you like?” Danny responds to Steve’s intense stare.

Steve nods. “Oh yes,” he says. “Makes me want to skip dinner.”

Danny gestures to the kitchen, where Steve has put out wine glasses and candles. “Quite the set-up you’ve got in there. Looks like you’ve got a date or something.”

Steve steps away from the steaks to wrap his arm around Danny’s waist and pull Danny towards him for a kiss. “I do. I’m really hoping he likes steak. And wine. And me.”

Danny laughs, resting his hands on Steve’s chest. “I think you’re good there. If I didn’t know better I’d think this was a seduction.”

“Would that be so terrible?” Steve asks, his voice husky with desire.

Danny hesitates before shaking his head. He winds his arms around Steve’s neck and pulls him in for another kiss. Steve runs his hands up and down Danny’s body hungrily. Danny finally breaks off the kiss. “I don’t think either of us wants a well done steak,” he says.

The steaks turn out medium, not the medium rare Steve had planned, but they’re delicious, as is the sight of Danny eating across from him, laughing and smiling as he fills Steve in on Grace and Charlie’s latest antics. 

It’s Danny who brings up 5-0 first, casually mentioning that Lou has been grumbling about not getting enough time on the golf course.

“It’s Lou. I’m sure he’ll figure out how to fit a few rounds in here and there,” Steve says mildly. 

“He says he doesn’t have any time now that he’s basically running 5-0,” Danny replies, looking pointedly at Steve.

Steve is not ready for this conversation. What he is ready for is taking Danny upstairs and peeling off those tight pants and form-fitting polo and burying himself in Danny. But if any of those things are going to happen, Steve is going to have to tread very, very carefully.

“Can we table Five-0 talk for tonight? I really just want to talk about how sexy you are,” Steve says.

Danny lets out a bark of laughter. “Are these your lines, Steve? Seriously? You’re lucky you look like you do.” Danny takes a drink of his red wine, his eyes moving away from Steve’s gaze to look at the fancy tablecloth and candles Steve set out. Steve didn’t think it was possible for Danny to look any sexier, but the candlelight flickering across his face brings out the serene beauty that Danny possesses in repose. Steve loves the hand-wringing dramatics of his partner, but Danny settled and still and relaxed is a lovely thing to behold.

“You’re staring, Steven,” Danny says.

“Yeah… I do that,” Steve admits.

“I know.” Danny sets down his wine glass.

“I’d like to take you upstairs now,” Steve says and even in the candlelight, he can see the flush that spreads across Danny’s cheeks.

“Okay,” Danny whispers.

Steve is out of his chair and kneeling in front of Danny, lifting Danny into his arms in a split second.

Danny shakes his head as Steve walks them towards the stairs. “I guess I know now why they called you Smooth Dog in the Army,” he teases.

“The Navy, Danny,” Steve counters. “And you haven’t seen anything yet.”

There are more candles upstairs. Fucking rose petals, too, because yes, Steve went all out. He’s going to seduce Danny, take his time and warm Danny up, and then he’s going to make love to Danny.

In his arms, Danny takes in the romantic set up. He turns to look at Steve, eyes wide. “Are you serious right now?” he asks, but his tone is more incredulous than teasing.

Steve gently sets Danny down on the bed, and crawls in next to him, taking Danny’s face in his hands and pulling Danny in for a soft kiss. Danny’s lips open and Steve takes his time just kissing Danny, enjoying the feel of Danny’s lips on his own, tasting Danny with his tongue. 

Steve runs his hands down Danny’s body and gently lifts Danny’s shirt, pulling it over Danny’s head once Danny pulls back from their kiss to let him do so. Steve leans forward, trailing kisses down Danny’s neck to one of his nipples. Steve takes Danny’s nipple in his mouth gently and flicks it with his tongue.

Danny hisses in pleasure. “Jesus, Steve,” he breathes. Steve repeats this trick with Danny’s other nipple and is rewarded when Danny arches his back, pressing his body closer to Steve’s probing mouth.

Steve pushes Danny back on the bed, hands at the button on Danny’s pants. He slides them off Danny’s body. His cock jumps when he sees Danny is wearing soft black briefs underneath which leave nothing to the imagination. Steve is pleased to see Danny is responding to his ministrations. 

He settles down on top of Danny, lightly. Danny tugs at his shirt. “You’re wearing too many clothes,” he complains. Steve pulls off his shirt and settles down on Danny, claiming Danny’s mouth with his own. Danny runs his hands up Steve’s back, legs spreading to accommodate Steve’s body between them. Steve can feel his cock straining against his pants, longing to be free, free and inside Danny, but he’s determined to exercise patience.

And yet his hands have minds of their own. They travel down Danny’s body and slip beneath his briefs to cup that full, round ass. He squeezes Danny’s cheeks as he kisses his lips, then trails his mouth down Danny’s jawline to his neck.

“Fuck, Danny,” Steve breathes. “You’re so fucking sexy.” His eager hands pull back from Danny’s ass to slide the briefs down Danny’s thighs, freeing his cock. Danny wriggles a little, helping Steve to remove his underwear. Steve sits back on his haunches, taking in the sight of Danny’s naked body, taking note of his sizable erection.

Danny looks up at him, face flushed, lips a little swollen. “You just going to sit there and stare?” he asks.

Steve shakes his head, unbutton his pants and shucking them off along with his underwear. He sees Danny’s eyes widen a little at the sight of his fully erect cock.

Steve isn’t small. Okay, that’s an understatement. Steve is hung. He’s always been proud of his length and his girth. But he can see Danny looks a little… overwhelmed. It’s not like Danny isn’t well endowed, but then, that’s not going to matter to Steve.

Before Danny can start to panic, Steve slides down and covers Danny’s body again with his own, pressing kiss after kiss to Danny’s lips. Steve can feel the tension in Danny’s body beneath him.

Steve kisses his way up Danny’s jawline until he reaches Danny’s ear. “I want to be inside you, Danny,” he whispers, causing Danny to shiver beneath him. “Can you feel how much I want you?”

“Kinda hard to miss that, Steve,” Danny retorts quietly, voice shaky. Steve’s erection is pressed into Danny’s naked thigh.

Steve gazes into Danny’s eyes. “Do you trust me?”

Danny regards him for a moment before nodding. Steve reaches for the tube of lube he concealed behind one of the candles. He squeezes some on to his fingers, but this time instead of just shoving them into Danny, he gently circles Danny’s hole, teasing it open as he resumes kissing Danny.

Steve feels Danny tense up a little as his lubed fingers slide in, but as his fingers work soft circles inside Danny, Steve feels his partner relax. He continues to tease Danny with his fingers until he feels Danny’s legs spread further apart to let Steve probe deeper inside him. When Steve hits that special spot, Danny gasps in pleasure.

“You like that?” Steve asks and Danny nods wordlessly. Steve smiles. “I’m gonna make you feel so good, baby.” He reluctantly removes his fingers from Danny’s ass so he can coat his cock with lube. He sits back, enjoying Danny’s blush as Danny watches.

When he’s finished, Steve drops the tube back on the nightstand and settles back between Danny’s open thighs. He gently rolls Danny back so that he can line his head up with the entrance to Danny’s body. He hears Danny’s little gasp.

“I’m gonna take care of you,” Steve whispers, and after a moment, Danny nods his assent. Steve presses his cock against Danny’s entrance and pushes his way inside. Danny tenses as soon as Steve gets his head in, and Steve whispers “Shhhhh” as he pushes forward, feeling Danny’s body give way until Steve is all the way in, his balls pressed up against Danny’s firm ass.

Danny’s jaw is clenched. His ass is so fucking tight around Steve’s cock that Steve thinks he might explode. “Breathe, Danny, just breathe,” Steve leans forward, bending Danny’s legs back so that he can hover over Danny.

Danny looks up at him, eyes wide. “I feel ridiculous,” Danny finally says. Steve smiles and presses a kiss to Danny’s lips. 

“You feel amazing,” Steve intones still trying to get used to this incredible feeling. “I’m inside you, Danny.” Steve can hear the wonder in his own voice. The reverence. Because it’s better than he ever imagined, and when he’d fantasized about it—eagerly and often—it was already amazing, but god, nothing like this, as good as he’d imagined it, nothing compares to the real thing.

“I’m aware, Steven,” Danny huffs. “You’re huge, you Neanderthal animal.”

Steve looks at Danny, but he’s smiling even as he grits his teeth. Steve presses another kiss to Danny’s lips. He starts to move, pulling back and thrusting gently into Danny, slowly at first.

Danny bites his lip, concentrating as Steve moves in and out of him. His hands grip Steve’s biceps hard.

“Relax,” Steve whispers, trying focus and not lose himself to the feel of being inside Danny. 

Danny frowns up at him. “Easy for you to say,” he shoots back. “You don’t have a baseball bat shoved up your ass.”

Steve laughs, shaking his head. “You’ll get used to it,” he promises.

The feel of Danny around his cock is intoxicating. He’s never going to get enough of this. He’s picked up the pace but he feels Danny starting to relax a little around him as he hits Danny’s prostate.

Danny throws his head back and moans in pleasure and fuck if it isn’t the sexiest thing Steve has ever felt. This is heaven, he knows it, being inside of Danny, Danny’s warmth all around him, he’s losing himself in Danny’s tight heat, and fuck now he’s slamming into Danny, unable to control himself and this is it he’s going to let go he has to come but before he does he wraps his hand around Danny’s cock and roughly thrusts and Danny’s hard too and Danny’s moaning and they’re in synch, sweating together, and fuck, fuck, fuck—

Danny comes with a cry in his hand, cum shooting across his stomach. Danny’s back arches and his hole constricts around Steve’s cock and that’s when Steve loses all rational thought.

He’s a speeding train—

Danny’s tight heat is all around him—

Danny’s soft moans as Steve continues to thrust—

Danny

Danny

Danny

Steve’s the king of the fucking world.

He explodes inside Danny with a bellow of triumph.

He’s seeing stars because fuck, fuck, fuck he sees everything as he spills out deep inside Danny.

Inside Danny. He’s completely lost himself inside Danny.

Satiated – at last, for now – he collapses onto Danny, who yelps in protest. Steve, cock still pressed inside Danny’s body, buries his face in Danny’s neck and realizes he’s found paradise at last.


End file.
